Parade interrupts class and students shouting "don't sell roti!!"

Good morning all!

I've stopped regularly updating the blog because there is so much that I have to catch up on and wanted to return the regularity to the blog, so I'm going to resume that and add my adventures in as I write them. So, it's going to loose a bit of the flow that it's had, but you'll be more up to date!

School is going well. I'm a bit more than a month into the second semester and things are going really well. This semester has been much more enjoyable as I feel my lessons are planned more quickly and easily. I also feel like I'm having much more fun in class with the students and can shift the mood of the class as I desire (which make it easier to joke around and have fun and then get back to work). Those two things combined have made for a very enjoyable semester. I've been teaching a Cell unit to my M1 students and just this week switched over to an Ecology unit which I'm really looking forward to. In M2, I've been teaching an Earth Science unit and will continue that for a while. I've been teaching plate tectonics and everything related to that and have moved into rocks and minerals and will stay there for a bit before moving on to soils (thrilling, I know - but we've had fun so far). In M3, I've been teaching kinematics and that's been really neat. It's been wonderful to teach the theory, do demonstrations, have the students experiment and work through problems all in the same unit. I've enjoyed teaching this unit more so than any other and will be sad to end this unit, but I've still got a lot more to teach before I call it quits for this unit.

As for the subject of this blog 'Parade interrupts class', there was a parade in the street in front of the school during my class and classes across campus stopped and all of the students went down to watch the parade which lasted for about 45 minutes! It was neat though, as I went down to join them. It was a parade put on by the Chinese-Thai residents of Lampang and lasted all day. It was a special day in China (no one could translate exactly what the celebration was all about) but there was some celebration. People would walk down the streets and would pray in front of people houses (mostly Chinese-Thai families) if they had laid out a red table with offerings. There were dragons and water being sprayed and general merriment during the parade and so it was neat, but it put a big hole in the middle of my class. The next subject of the blog ' students shouting 'don't sell roti'' during class is a bit more confusing. While I was teaching, one of the students quietly asked me to not sell nuts. I was confused and I asked him what he had said. He repeated it and I asked him what it meant trying to figure out what exactly he wanted. Of course, everyone in class was now listening and eventually the whole class was trying to explain to me what he meant by that. It was ridiculous. I couldn't understand anything they were saying cause they were all talking at once. First the students tried to explain the nuts part of the expression. "People who sell things sell nuts", they said, "they also sell roti (a crepe like dessert that is sold in stalls along the street)". Since I knew roti and understood that they started shouting "Don't sell roti!". I still didn't understand why and eventually one of the students was able to explain that the word for 'sell things' is similar to the word for 'block' in Thai. So the student was trying to tell me to not block the board so that he could read what I wrote and take notes. But the whole thing was hilarious and several of the students where almost crying they were laughing so hard...I thought it was funny, but not that funny so I think I was missing something else. Anyway, it made for quite the class.

I've begun teaching an extra class to 5-year-old students this semester as well. I started about 3 weeks ago and it has been an adventure but I'm absolutely loving it. First, I'm teaching English which is very different than science and it's neat to have the opportunity to teach English and see what it's like. Second, they're 5 and fun and have a ton of energy. Third, it's also an opportunity for me to learn Thai (not speaking with them, though I do, but making sure I know the words and lessons in Thai before I teach it if we have problems and so they can double check to make sure they're getting the right word). I teach 2 little kids, a little girl and a little boy. I come to class and we play games and use flash cards and right now they repeat everything I say. Mostly I've been teaching the alphabet, pronouns, colors and numbers. I started with a few verbs the other day and soon maybe we'll get a sentence or two!

Other news, I've moved into a house! I found a place to rent and have moved out of my apartment into the house (today actually). It's a great little house outside of town. It's a brand new one bedroom house with a bathroom and kitchen. The owner built the house for himself as a weekend getaway and retirement house, but wanted to rent it for a while (lucky me!). It's fully furnished with new and nice furniture and the owners are really nice. It's a beautiful little brick house out on the edge of a village outside of town so three of the four sides of the house don't face other houses. One side is a little field/meadow and the others look out onto rice fields and the mountains in the distance. It's perfect! I'll be sure to post pictures here in a few days once I get settled.